The world in the Age of Revolution
While Europe lived through revolution and the Napoleonic Wars: the birth of the United States and Haiti, Latin America on the eve of independence, China, Korea and Vietnam, India, Egypt and Africa, the Balkans and Oceania, scientific discoveries and the climate catastrophe of 1815–1816.
32 events · 10 regions · Southeast Asia and Oceania, North America, Central and Northern Asia, East Asia, Western and Central Europe, Africa, Latin America, South Asia, Middle East and Egypt, Balkans and Anatolia
Historians often call the years 1789–1815 an age of revolutions, and its upheavals were not confined to Europe. In the Americas the United States gained a constitutional government and within fifteen years doubled its territory, the rebel slaves of Saint-Domingue created Haiti, the Portuguese court, fleeing the French, moved to Rio de Janeiro, and the collapse of the Spanish monarchy after Napoleon’s invasion set off the wars of independence in Spanish America.
Anglo-French rivalry was fought out on every ocean: the British seized the Cape Colony and Java, and the East India Company, having crushed Mysore and defeated the Marathas, became the dominant power in India. Meanwhile other worlds lived by their own rules: the Qing Empire after Qianlong’s abdication struggled with rebellions and rejected European trade proposals, Japan refused trade to Russian embassies, Korea persecuted Catholicism, which had reached it from China, Gia Long unified Vietnam, Ranjit Singh founded the Sikh Empire, and the jihad of Usman dan Fodio gave rise to the Sokoto Caliphate in West Africa.
The thread also covers changes of another kind: Jenner’s vaccination and the Balmis Expedition, which carried the vaccine across Spanish America and Asia, the voltaic pile, the British ban on the slave trade, the journeys of Mungo Park and of Lewis and Clark, the mutiny on the Bounty — and the eruption of Tambora in 1815, which was followed by the “Year Without a Summer”.
Events
- Mutiny on the Bounty28 April 1789 · Southeast Asia and Oceania
- First inauguration of George Washington30 April 1789 · North America
- Syrym Datuly’s uprising1783–1797 · Central and Northern Asia
- Macartney Embassy to China14 September 1793 · East Asia
- Abdication of the Qianlong Emperor9 February 1796 · East Asia
- Edward Jenner’s cowpox vaccination14 May 1796 · Western and Central Europe
- Mungo Park’s first expedition to the Niger2 December 1795 – 10 June 1797 · Africa
- Haitian Revolutionbetween 21 August and 22 August 1791 – 1 January 1804 · Latin America
- Fall of Seringapatam and death of Tipu Sultan5 April – 4 May 1799 · South Asia
- White Lotus Rebellionbetween 1794 and 1796 – 1804 · East Asia
- Voltaic pile20 March 1800 · Western and Central Europe
- Ranjit Singh proclaimed Maharaja of the Punjab12 April 1801 · South Asia
- Catholic persecution of 1801 in Korea22 February – 10 December 1801 · East Asia
- Gia Long unifies Vietnam and founds the Nguyễn dynasty1 June 1802 · Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Louisiana Purchase30 April – 20 December 1803 · North America
- Battle of Assaye23 September 1803 · South Asia
- Haitian Declaration of Independence1 January 1804 · Latin America
- Balmis Expedition30 November 1803 – 14 August 1806 · Latin America
- Premiere of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony7 April 1805 · Western and Central Europe
- Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of EgyptMay 1805 · Middle East and Egypt
- Lewis and Clark Expedition14 May 1804 – 23 September 1806 · North America
- Battle of Blaauwberg and the capture of the Cape Colony8–18 January 1806 · Africa
- Jihad of Usman dan Fodio21 February 1804 – 1808 · Africa
- Slave Trade Act 180725 March 1807 · Western and Central Europe
- Transfer of the Portuguese court to Brazil29 November 1807 – 8 March 1808 · Latin America
- Rum Rebellion26 January 1808 · Southeast Asia and Oceania
- First Serbian Uprising14 February 1804 – 7 October 1813 · Balkans and Anatolia
- Cry of Dolores16 September 1810 · Latin America
- British conquest of Java4 August – 18 September 1811 · Southeast Asia and Oceania
- War of 181218 June 1812 – 17 February 1815 · North America
- Eruption of Mount Tambora5–11 April 1815 · Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Year Without a Summer1816 · North America
Key participants
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Age of Revolution
- Wikipedia (English): Spanish American wars of independence
- Wikipedia (Russian): Война за независимость испанских колоний в Америке
- Hobsbawm E. J. The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848. — London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962.
- Palmer R. R. The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800. Vol. 1–2. — Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959–1964.
- Bayly C. A. The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons. — Oxford: Blackwell, 2004.
- Armitage D., Subrahmanyam S. (eds.) The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760–1840. — Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Other threads
- Eastern Europe and Rus’ before the Baptism (1st–10th c.) 200 BC – AD 1015 · 46 events
- Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.) 9–508 · 38 events
- Early medieval Europe (500–1000) 529–1001 · 45 events
- Asia, Africa and the Americas in the 13th century 1181–1299 · 12 events
- Europe and the Mediterranean in the 13th century 1204–1295 · 16 events
- Mongol conquests 1206–1294 · 21 events
- Rus’ in the 13th century 1216–1283 · 17 events
- History of Portugal since the Battle of Aljubarrota 1385–1999 · 41 events
- Age of Discovery and the New World 1420–1543 · 21 events
- Asia and Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries 1449–1550 · 20 events
- Europe and the Ottoman Empire: the end of the Middle Ages 1453–1543 · 19 events
- Muscovy 1462–1556 · 16 events
- Russia at the turn of the 19th century 1783–1815 · 28 events
- French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars 1789–1821 · 37 events